


Feel Again

by Gracemoon99



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Fluff, Kindred Spirits, Love, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 13:12:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6007411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gracemoon99/pseuds/Gracemoon99
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy is 95 years old and it is what would have been her and Daniel's 66th wedding anniversary. Peggy's favorite relative, her great granddaughter Maya, comes to visit her with a special gift. Fluff ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feel Again

**Author's Note:**

> A beautiful human being made a Peggysous fan video to the song 'Feel Again' by One Republic. That video inspired this, so whoever you are I give you credit as a muse. I tried my hardest to make the math (aka ages and dates and what-not) as precise as possible, so this fanfiction is set on May 2, 2016, 4 Days before Captain America: Civil War comes out (if you've seen the spoilers, by the end of this fanfiction you will understand why this date is so important). As always, questions, comments, and stages of protest are welcome. Please enjoy!!

In her old age Peggy Carter had become quite a lonely woman; after she became ‘far too old and weak to take care of herself,’ as her grandson Albert so eloquently put it, she was sent to the Home for the Elderly. (Elderly is such a repulsive word isn’t it?) She rarely got visitors, save for her only great granddaughter, Maya. Maya was quite fond of her great grandmother, and the 16 year old would often sneak into Peggy’s room at the nursing home unannounced.

Maya was fascinated with Peggy's life story and constantly asked about her grandmother's adventures from the many years she worked as an agent for the SSR and as Director of SHIELD. Peggy was more than willing to share certain details with this vibrant young woman and caught herself many a time divulging far too many secrets from her past, but her granddaughter was so easy to talk to, and, sadly, she was one of few that would actually listen. 

 

Maya had a lot of Peggy in her; she was smart, courageous, curious, and was always willing to go on an adventure. She often snuck out of her parent’s house in the suburbs outside of New York City to wander the streets of surrounding neighborhoods in search of trouble. Maya often found herself in sticky situations, but despite the dangers she put herself into, she always made a seamless escape, somehow leaving most of these ordeals unscathed. Peggy was the only person in Maya's family who knew about these late night adventures, and she always laughed with her when Maya would recount the stupid deeds she would commit in the dead of night. 

Maya spent most of her time out of her house. Her father, Peggy's eldest grandson, and her mother were very different from Maya, they were your stereotypical suburban couple. They always attended banquets for charities and large parties hosted by their debutant friends and co-workers. Maya's father worked for a large law firm, and her mother was the headmaster for an all-girls prep school. In short, she was the black sheep of her family. Whenever she had the chance she would escape her boring household to visit her favorite relative, and she felt so relieved to sit and talk with a woman who understood her 'bohemian lifestyle' as her mother called it. Maya dressed in dark jeans and graphic t-shirts, she listened to music from every generation but her own, she watched television in appreciation of the cinematography, she read books and poetry in search of symbolism, and did the opposite of everything her mother told her to. She was like Peggy in that regard. She looked like Peggy too; she had the same large, dark brown eyes, wavy brown hair, and curvaceous figure that her grandmother possessed. The two were kindred spirits, supposedly the wildness of Peggy's spirit skipped a generation or two. 

 

Maya was a filmmaker, and quite a creative one, at that. She loved to make documentaries that exploited serious social and political subjects. Maya would often take videos and pictures of poor people and underdogs in the streets of New York in the hopes of bringing recognition to the terrible lifestyles that a decent percentage of the population lived. She sold and published these taboo films under an alias to magazines and websites to spread the word about social inequality and prejudice in the modern world. She shared these creations to her grandmother and no one else, because she knew that Peggy was the only person in her family that would appreciate them, and Peggy did. She loved Maya’s films, and always looked forward to seeing the new videos that her brilliant granddaughter created.

 

~

 

Today, May 2nd, was a very important day for Peggy. It would have been the 66th anniversary of her marriage to the love of her life, Daniel Sousa. Sadly, he had died about 20 years earlier of heart failure at the age of 72. Peggy missed him every day. She missed the resonance of his voice, and the warmth of his smile, and the spark of electricity that she felt every time he touched her- even after 46 years of marriage, the passion that they felt for each other never subsided. He was the center of her universe, the rock that kept her grounded throughout every dangerous and chaotic mission, the ultimate partner. Daniel never stopped helping her, not even after he retired early from the FBI when the work became too much for his leg, and his heart. (He continued to support her during missions as a liaison between the FBI and SHIELD because of his vast connections to people in all areas of government all over the world.) Daniel was by her side until the day he died, and even after he was gone, he was still present in her daily life. When the going got tough, Peggy often found herself talking to him out loud, ranting about how awful her day was and how hard it was to deal with her job when he wasn't there to support her. 

When her bones started becoming too brittle and her heart became too overwhelmed with the stress of being the director of a secret agency, she retired at the youthful age of 92, and her daughter, Isabella, and her grandson, Albert, admitted her into the nursing home . Even after she moved there she continued to speak to Daniel; however, this caused everyone to believe that she was developing dementia and her family and everyone at the nursing home began to treat her like a child. Well, everyone except Maya. This helped them form an even stronger bond; for, they were the only people in the entire Carter-Sousa family that actually understood and respected one another. (Strangely, the adventurous traits that Peggy and Daniel had did not pass on to their children and grandchildren, until Maya came along.)

Peggy had not expected anyone to come and visit her today since all of her children and grandchildren, except for Maya’s family, were spread out all over the country, and they were all too busy to come say hello to her on the day of her anniversary, so when Maya slipped through her bedroom window, Peggy smiled brighter than she had in the week since Maya last skipped school to come visit her.

“Hey you old fart!” Maya grunted as she pulled herself through the window from the fire escape.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at school, young lady?” Peggy scolded mocking seriousness.

“Gross! You sound like my mother, and what happened to: Hey Maya! How are you today? I’m so glad you came to visit me!”

“Hello Maya.” Peggy smiled. “How are you today?”

“I’m fine, thank you for asking.” Maya sat down in the chair next to Peggy’s bed. Peggy moved to sit up, but her body refused to cooperate and she laid back down. “Here Peg, let me help you with that.” Maya slid her arm behind Peggy’s back and lifted her up into a sitting position.

“Thank you, dear.” Peggy squeezed her arm. “I feel so helpless now-a-days.”

“Well that tends to happen when a person has been living for almost a century.” They laughed. (“What matters is whether you are young at heart or not.”)

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company today?”

“Well today is your wedding anniversary, or have you forgotten that too?” Maya smiled and Peggy rolled her eyes. “I have a present for you!”

“I don’t need any presents. I’m too old for gifts, and I also hate them.”

“Well I think that you will love this one!” Maya pulled her old laptop from her bag and placed it on the bed next to Peggy’s legs. She quickly typed in the password and opened the only file left on the computer; everything else had been moved to her new laptop that she had gotten for an early birthday present. “I’ve been working on this for a while now.”

“What is it?” Peggy peered at the screen with blurry vision and reached for her reading glasses on the bedside table.

“Well, over the years I have been searching through all of the old family albums and old home film reels for pictures and videos of you and Gramps. I never knew him, and this was my way to sort of get to know him. I got this idea last year on your anniversary to make a little film about your lives and,” she turned the computer so that its screen faced Peggy, “this is what I came up with.”

She pressed play and there was the image of the old timed countdown “3, 2, 1…” and…

~

It’s been a long time coming since I’ve seen your face

I’ve been everywhere and back trying to replace

Everything that I’ve had till my feet went numb

Praying like a fool that’s been on the run

Hearts still beating but it’s not working

It’s like a million dollar phone that you just can’t ring

I reach out trying to love but I feel nothing

Yeah, my heart is numb

But with you, I Feel Again

~

Images of Peggy and Daniel’s wedding popped up, and pictures of Isabella and Michael as babies, and footage from Michaels first camera, and Peggy holding Maya as a baby, and all of the small, seemingly insignificant images that were randomly taken throughout Peggy’s life. There was Daniel’s FBI badge, and Peggy’s clearance card for SHIELD, and countless other videos and pictures. But the image that stood out the most was the final image in the film. It was taken after the closing of the Whitney Frost case; it was just a picture of the FBI taking her into custody, but if one were to look closer, she would see Daniel and Peggy in the very back of the image on the right side. Their faces are not shown only their backs, and Daniel has his arm around Peggy’s shoulder as they walk in the opposite direction of everyone in the picture.

That was one of the greatest moments of Peggy’s life. For the duration of the case, Peggy and Daniel had struggled to fight their feelings for one another; he was engaged and she was developing feelings for a young scientist named Jason Wilkes, but, for some reason, they both felt this powerful pull towards one another. They tried to keep their distance; however, those efforts were in vain, because after Peggy had fallen and suffered a nearly fatal injury, something between them had drastically changed. She almost died, and throughout the entire ordeal all she could think of was him. She wanted to tell him everything she felt, everything that she had been trying to fight since the moment he asked her out for drinks, but, after Violet had stitched her up and told her that she would be okay, Peggy, once again, internalized her feelings. Daniel, however, did not. While Peggy was incapacitated, Violet could clearly see that Daniel and Peggy had something between them; she knew he loved her, and that evening, Violet broke off the engagement. She told him to tell Peggy how he felt so that ‘at least someone gets something good out of it.’ For the remainder of the case, he let his feelings shine through far more than they had before Peggy was impaled, and the entire time Peggy had no choice but to let herself feel too.

On the night before they captured Whitney Frost Peggy and Daniel had finally gotten drinks, and, when they were tipsy enough to stop worrying about consequences, they had kissed. They kissed again, and again, and again, so much so, that they no longer felt the effect of alcohol. After a while, Daniel had walked her home, and with one last warm kiss, he bid her goodnight. Evidently, from that point on their relationship was very different, and when Whitney was finally arrested, Daniel asked her once again to go for a drink, and, with a smile, she whispered ‘yes,’ and they walked off into what would be the rest of their lives.

After a moment of silence a tear rolled down Peggy’s cheek as she gazed at the laptop, which had zoomed in on this image so that Peggy and Daniel took up the whole screen. Maya watched with watery eyes as her grandmother remembered Daniel Sousa, and she stood. “You can keep this Peg. I wanted you to.”

Maya’s words pulled Peggy out of her thoughts and she looked into the girl’s eyes. “Thank you for this, Maya.” She uttered through the lump that had formed in her throat. “I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

“I told you you would like it.” Maya laughed. After a pause, Maya stood up, “I know I just got here, but I have a test next period, and I skipped lunch to bring this to you.” She kissed Peggy’s forehead and gave her a warm hug. “I love you grandma!”

“I love you too, sweetie.” Peggy laughed. “Good luck on your test!”

“Thanks, Peg.” Maya said as she opened the bedroom window. “I’ll see you later!”

“Bye!” Peggy called as Maya slipped through the window and onto the fire escape. She watched as the young girl quickly moved down the metal stairs with elegance until she was out of sight. Peggy sighed and turned back towards the computer on her lap. She pressed the play button and closed her eyes as she slowly lowered herself back onto her pillow. She let the music envelope her as she drifted off to sleep.

After a moment, the music was gone, and when she opened her eyes, she was no longer in her hospital room. She was someplace unfamiliar. She looked around, trying to figure out where she was and suddenly a voice behind her halted her movements. “Hey, Peg.” She gasped when she turned around and saw his face, still strong and handsome as it had always been.

“It’s been so long.” She gazed into his eyes and he smiled.

“I know, Peg. I’m so sorry. But you don’t have to worry about that any more. I’m not going anywhere.” She laughed as she walked into his embrace. She nuzzled her head into the crook of his neck as he held her close and said, “I love you Peg.”

“I love you too, Daniel.”

~

I’m feeling better ever since you know me

I was a lonely soul, but that’s the old me

A little wiser now from what you’ve shown me

Yeah, I feel again…


End file.
